Archive
RSS Feed
DonateNovember 11, 2001 |
See also: [Year C Archive] |
Job 19:23-27a
Psalm 17:1-9
This Psalm expresses sentiments that are much closer to the American people these days. Placed on the lips of David, it asks God to recognize his virtue and give him the protection he deserves. It partakes of the self-righteousness against which I wrote in the commentary for last week.
The attribution to David is probably unhistorical, but it has its positive value at this point. Although David was greatly loved and admired by Jews, they nevertheless recorded his sins when they told his story. David was far from innocent. When his own son led a rebellion against him, one should not blame David. But he was not innocent. He had established a harem in which intrigue flourished. He had other serious sins to acknowledge, his dealing with Uriah and Bathsheba being the most dramatic. His greatness lay in the fact that he acknowledged his sin, not in his innocence.
From the Christian point of view, furthermore, none of us has the kind of innocence the Psalmist claims. Indeed, if the Psalmist commits no other sin, the self-righteous tone of this Psalm is sin enough to convict him.
Psalms like this (and there are others that are more disturbing) have their place in the canon. One strength of our Jewish heritage is its ability to celebrate heroes who sinned in very serious ways without concealing their sins. Another strength is that it gives expression to a wide range of moods and views, letting them stand unreconciled.
There is no effort to bring all scriptures up to the level of insight and understanding that Israel attained at its best and deepest. There are passages expressing self-righteousness like this one and asking God to do terrible things to ones enemies. In this way we acknowledge the reality, the naturalness, of these sentiments and affirm that if they do express the way we feel, we should express them honestly to God. There is no spiritual growth beyond these feelings without such honesty.
But there is also no spiritual growth if we do not come to see the limitations of this self-righteousness and calling on God to support us against our enemies. This is a place to begin the journey; it is certainly not the place to end it. Isaiah’s call on the people of Jerusalem to acknowledge their sins is a further step on the journey. We Christians find in Jesus’ depiction of what is entailed in loving God with all our being and loving our neighbors as ourselves a call to a righteousness we never actually attain. It forever ends the possibility of self-righteousness and the claim to innocence. It forever ends the possibility of seeing our conflicts with others as those of good against evil.
At this stage in our national response to tragedy, perhaps there is value in reading this Psalm together. In part it will express our collective feeling of wounded innocence and our appeal to God to protect us from our enemies. In part, if the gospel has taken some hold on us, it will be an occasion of dissonance that leads us to recognize we cannot really pray this prayer "in Jesus’ name." Our enemies are no doubt sinners, and it is easy for us to see how their self-righteousness blinds them to the evil of what they do. We can easily imagine their praying to God in this vein, calling on God to defend them against our superior worldly power because of their purity and virtue. And imagining that can give us pause and challenge our own self-righteousness. We, too, are sinners.
The passage from Job takes us another step. Job is very much like the author of the Psalm in that he protests his virtue and innocence. The difference is that the Psalmist expects God’s reward for his virtue. Job protests the terrible suffering that has come upon him, wholly undeserved.
The passage itself selected for this Sunday is a strange one that interrupts the flow of complaint against both God and human and human companions Probably it is an interpolation. Some reader could not stand the seemingly endless account of injustice only made worse by those who claim that some justice must underlie it. Suddenly Job bursts forth in this expression of confidence in final vindication. The God who persecutes him without cause will vindicate him. "I know that my Redeemer lives." Stated from the depths of misery, suffering, loneliness, and unjust accusation, this cry has had deep meaning for Jews and Christians. It expresses faith at just that time when the course of events seems to deny any basis for faith.
In context, the Redeemer is God, and this is how Jews read it. Even in the midst of the Holocaust, many Jews continued to affirm their confidence that God, the Redeemer, lives. We are stirred anew as we contemplate that act of faith. Christians, on the other hand, have identified the Redeemer with the One in whom we find God incarnated and revealed, Jesus. For our present purposes, the difference is not important.
The point is that believers look to God for redemption. The hope takes many forms. Here it seems to be the assurance that one will see God and that God will be for one – on one’s side. For some it has been the assurance that justice will be done in another sphere after death. For process theology it has several dimensions. No matter how desperate the situation, God offers opportunities that respond to it as positively as possible. God always stands with us as the great companion who understands. Our responses of anger and vengefulness as well as those of love and joy are taken seriously by God and live on in the divine life making what contribution they can. We know that our Redeemer lives.
Is this relevant to our national situation? I think so. Those who lost their lives in the World Trade Center and the Pentagon live on in God. God rejoices with us in the spontaneous outpouring of concern and fellow feeling for those who were injured or who lost friends and family. God celebrates with us our new sense of solidarity as a people, the deepened love of nation.
God also understands the anger, even the self-righteous anger, of the American people. God sympathizes with the desire to strike back and punish those who attacked us. These feelings are taken up into the divine life and God makes of them what God can. God also works to call forth more honest understanding of ourselves and our role in the world, greater love of the enemy, and more commitment to the larger, more inclusive, good.
God is not our ally in punishing those with whom we disagree. That is the way our attackers think. God understands those beliefs and feelings as well, but that does not make them true. As late as World War I, Christians on both sides tended to claim God as their supporter against the other side. In World War II, despite the fact that the war against Hitler could be viewed more plausibly than most as a war of the righteous against evil, this claim of God as on "our" side was decidedly muted. We have matured spiritually in this respect. Let us hope that in our War On Terrorism we not fall back into this more primitive way of thinking, just the kind of thinking that turns our enemies into terrorists.
If you found this lectionary helpful, please consider contributing to Process & Faith by making a donation or becoming a member.